PROJECT PABST 2025 To Include Iggy Pop, DEVO, Built To Spill, & Cap’n Jazz

Project Pabst began in 2014 as a 2-day music festival held by the waterfront in Portand, Oregon. The 21+ event thrown by Pabst Blue Ribbon consists of two large stages facing one another on opposing ends of the premises. Rather than force attendees to choose between which sets to see, the performances alternate between the stages and never overlap. The first couple of years boasted headliners like Tears For Fears, Modest Mouse, Weezer, and Blondie along with supporting acts like GZA, Run The Jewels, Thee Oh Sees, TV On The Radio, and Rocket From The Crypt. Late-night shows by acts like Guided By Voices and BadBadNotGood would take place for additional fees in venues across the city. During the day, attendees would drink PBR in the gravel plot, escape the heat in the vintage arcade (PBRcade), and/or spray paint graffiti on a van set up for that purpose. What I always enjoyed about the event is that it rode the balance of being a major music festival with a quality lineup, while maintaining the energy of watching a punk show while drinking in the parking lot.

By 2016, the night shows were gone, and the festival had moved down the road to a similar space that looked almost identical to me because I’m not from Portland. Their trademark of mixing up the lineup with various genres and eras remained—WEEN, Ice Cube, Duran Duran, and Tame Impala performed that year—and the festival got bold enough to try and expand to three other cities (Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Denver) with completely different, yet similarly varied, lineups. The bill for the Portland installment in 2017 included Iggy Pop, Beck, Nas, Lizzo, Spoon, and Father John Misty, among others. Things seemed to be going strong, but the other markets were all reduced to one-day events that year. The following year, Project Pabst didn’t continue at all. What had been born as “a love letter to Portland,” the city that helped keep PBR hip and relevant at a time when the company was struggling with its sales and image, became a project that had stretched itself thin, prompting the founders to end things on a high note.

Seven years after its initial run, Project Pabst rose from the ashes last year as a strictly Portland-based event again. While it was the first year we didn’t attend, the lineup featuring names like Billy Idol, Big Thief, T-Pain Sweeping Promises, and Violent Femmes suggested they didn’t miss a beat. I’ve read a little about the choice to revive the festival and the gist of the story is that locals missed it, people at Pabst missed it, and a whole new wave of people in charge of the PBR marketing budget questioned why it couldn’t and shouldn’t happen again.

Today the folks at Project Pabst confirm their plans to trudge forward by releasing the 2025 lineup. This year will see Iggy Pop return, as well as Built To Spill, who played a late-night gig at the Crystal Ballroom back in the inaugural year. Joining them are major standouts like DEVO; English punk legends, The Damed; and Death Cab For Cutie. Midwest-Emo/Post-hardcore pioneers, Cap’n Jazz will also be playing the festival as one of the stops on their incredibly limited run of reunion dates this year. This looks like another good one, folks. Plus, Project Pabst is a fairly stress-free event, overall. If you like the idea of walking around in a gravel lot and throwing back cans while Mark Mothersbaugh tosses energy domes into the crowd, this is your chance to live that reality.

Project Pabst 2025 will take place during the weekend of July 26-27.

For tickets and additional info, visit ProjectPabst.com.
Check out the full lineup below.